The Next Time You Go Away
by BasementOfTheMansion
Summary: Kelly, Toby, snow, and a parking lot. And a very important hypothetical question.


**Title:** The Next Time You Go Away  
**Rating:** K  
**Disclaimer:** I merely own my own metaphors. They're all I have...  
**A/N:** This was written in giddy antici... pation of Frame Toby. While I'm mixed on the episode itself (on one hand, I'm consumed with a sense of WTF??? On the other.... Kelly brought Toby a brownie!), only minor edits were needed to make this canon-friendly and I'm quite proud of it. This was written because it's finally snowing in the Keystone State and takes place an unspecified time after FT, probably a couple weeks.

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Kelly loves it when it first starts snowing. Not the whole season, mind you. By January she's sick of it and thinks if she never saw a snowflake for the rest of her life, it'd be too soon. But late November, early December, it's so pretty and she's had enough time away to appreciate it. And her coat and scarf and gloves are unstained by slush, and she looks cute.

She walks out of the building with Toby, because they're the last ones to leave. It's an accident, but she kind of likes how it happened. Because she kind of likes him, even though everyone else hates him or kind of avoids him ever since he came back from Costa Rica. It was weird how he left, but she doesn't care. She'd up and run for the beach, too, given half a chance. She actually though it was kind of cool that he did go, even if it didn't turn out so great.

The snow's coming down outside, soft and weightless, melting the second it touches pavement but settling on the cars, and she gasps because it looks so beautiful in a little bit of a dorky way. Like when it snows in Christmas movies and there's hopeful, jingly music. There needed to be hopeful, jingly music in the background at that moment.

"Oh my God, Toby, isn't it pretty?" she exclaims, clapping her gloved hands together.

He looks a little surprised that she addressed him, and for a split second he glances around, as if to make sure there wasn't another Toby behind him. "Yeah, it's really... pretty. It's nice," he agrees, sounding a little bemused, like the idea of talking about the weather is completely novel.

"Did you miss snow when you were in Costa Rica?" she asks.

"I was only there a few months," he says, and he just looks tired now. "In the summer."

"Oh, yeah. It seemed like longer." She kind of hates that she made him look tired. He always looks so tired, like that picture of the guy with the world on his shoulders.

"It did," he agrees, sounding even more tired, if that was possible.

"Sorry," she mumbles. She thinks it's kind of weird that they're standing out there in the snow and cold, more or less talking, for no reason at all, but she doesn't want to leave. He stays, too.

"I would have missed it," he clarifies after a pause. "Snow, I mean. I would have missed it if I'd been gone long enough."

"I missed you, when you were gone," she says out of the blue. It's totally out of place. She should have said it when he got back and now it's like this weird postscript to a letter she never sent. But he smiles for a moment, uncertainly but also gratefully.

Toby has a smile like a snowflake. It's pretty in the moments before it hits the blacktop and disappears forever. She wants to catch it in her gloved hands and carry it home into her freezer and keep it, but it's out of her grasp way too quickly.

"Did you miss me?" she asks in a cutesy, not-serious way, kind of hoping to make him smile again.

"Yeah," he says, and now the smile's in his voice. "More than snow."

She grins, not sure why his answer makes her so happy. Maybe because she doesn't think anyone else in the office would miss her if she went away. The annex could just disappear one day, and no one would care.

"If you ever go away again, I wanna go with you," she says, and she's not sure why. It's like his silence draws weird things out of her. But she knows she means it.

He looks at her kind of funny. "I'm not going away again."

"Just if," she says, searching his face.

"Hypothetically?"

"Yeah, that's it."

He shrugs. "Why not? Sure, I'll call you first."

She smiles, feeling like she passed some kind of a test. And he smiles back, a little confused, not following what tangent she had sprinted down, but kind of glad to be moving in any direction.

"You're, like, my best work-friend, Toby." Kelly says.

"Thanks." Then, "You, too."

Then she shivers, 'cause it's freakin' cold. "Oh, man... I should go," she says, shoving her hands into her pockets.

"See you tomorrow," he says, and he looks like he's maybe looking forward to it, and he hasn't looked like that in forever. Not since he came back.

"You, too," she echoes, walking backwards for a couple of steps, then she turns and runs to her car, snow in her hair and melting on her face like the softest kisses imaginable.

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_Come on, people... Beer me some reviews!_


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